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The WCW World Heavyweight Championship (sometimes simply WCW Championship or WCW Title) was the primary championship in the World Championship Wrestling professional wrestling organisation. Its lineage extends from that of the NWA World Heavyweight Championship, from which it was split in January 1991, and continues as the World Wrestling Entertainment World Heavyweight Championship. It has been held by many successful professional wrestlers, including Ric Flair, Hulk Hogan and Triple H.
History
Origin
In January 1991 Ted Turner bought Jim Crockett Promotions and renamed it World Championship Wrestling. While the promotion remained a member of the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA) Turner introduced his own championship, the WCW World Heavyweight Championship. The new championship continued to use the NWA World Heavywieght Championship title belt. When Ric Flair won the title from Sting (Steve Borden) he was declared the first WCW World Heavyweight Champion. Because of this WCW regularly claimed the NWA Chamionship lineage for its own championship.
After a disagreement with WCW Executive Vice-President Jim Herd, Flair left WCW for Vince McMahon's World Wrestling Federation (now World Wrestling Entertainment). When Herd refused to return his $25,000 deposit Flair kept the NWA belt. WCW was forced to create its own belt, which it awarded to Lex Luger (Larry Pohl) after he defeated Barry Windham.
In 1992, WCW paid Flair $35,000 and the NWA got its belt back. Still retaining membership in the NWA, WCW allowed the NWA to defend its title on WCW television. By September 1993, WCW pulled out of the NWA and kept the NWA belt, because it had purchased it from Flair. The belt was named the WCW International Championship and Sting became champion by defeating Rick Rude.
Unification
At this time Flair returned to WCW and won the WCW Championship, by defeating Vader (Leon White). WCW decided to unify the WCW World Heavyweight and International Championships, by having Flair wrestle Sting in 1994. Flair won and the International Title belt replaced the old World Heavyweight belt. Hulk Hogan entered WCW and won the WCW title from Flair. Holding the title off and on until 2000, Hogan helped WCW become the top wrestling company in the United States. However by 2000 it had suffered a succession of failures and went broke.
World Wrestling Entertainment
In March 2001, Vince McMahon bought World Championship Wrestling for $5,000,000 and tried to revive the company. After the company's failure, McMahon decided to unify the WCW and WWE World Titles.
Chris Jericho unfied the belts, by pinning The Rock and Stone Cold Steve Austin in 2002. The belts stayed unified, until won by Brock Lesnar. When Lesnar decided to wrestle only for WWE Smackdown!, WWE RAW General Manager Eric Bischoff created a new World Championship. Bischoff brought back the WCW title, but renamed it the World Heavyweight Championship. He gave the belt to Triple H and named him the first World Heavyweight Champion.
See Also
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